I’ve been back-reading your blog for a while and it’s brilliant. I’m still in high school, and I don’t go out much, so dudes don’t bug me very often. However this post reminded me of something that happened a couple of days ago. I was waiting for the subway when an older guy sat beside me. He wasn’t being creepy, I was just leaning over to grab my bag, so I guess it must have looked like he was too close and another woman waiting at the station came up to ask me if I knew the man and if he was bothering me. He wasn’t, but the fact that there are people who would come up and ask made me so ridiculously happy. I know that she shouldn’t have to be concerned that someone would bother a 16 year old girl on the subway, but her making sure made me a lot more optimistic. Anyway, I just wanted to say that you do an amazing job with this site. It *is* really accessible for a younger audience and the things you write really resonated with me Thank you.

Basically, he was raised to believe that men did not give a whit for fashion, and that any well-dressed man was only so because he wanted to impress his mate/s (or potential mate/s), and that left to their own devices, men would not bother with clothing beyond what they needed to keep warm.

This belief is so deeply entrenched in his mind, the concept that he dresses nicely for other people, that even when it is clear that he has very specific taste in clothing and well-developed fashion preferences for himself, he still thinks he is only dressing that way because we, myself and our boyfriend, like it. As evidence for this he cites the fact that he trusts my color-theory-informed sense of ‘what goes together’ more than his own. My father displayed a similar attitude, though he wasn’t so verbal about it.

Conversely, Mr Farore projects this peculiarity onto others. He feels that dressing to impress your SO(s) is a moral issue, and that dressing in a way your SO(s) do/es not appreciate is morally wrong. For example – he prefers an ‘all-American’ look to a more ‘alternative’ look. When I suggest dying my hair a non-natural color (something high up on my own priorities of attractiveness), his response is not just ‘well, it’s not my thing, but do what you like’, it is also tinged with this underlying, intense current of ‘if you alter your appearance in a way I personally do not find optimally visually pleasing, you are being hurtful to me’. He feels that the only reason ANYONE would ever dress a certain way would be for the benefit of others – he often says ‘you should tell me how to dress, because you have to look at me all day – not me’.

So perhaps that has something to do with this attitude that catcalling and beeping (which I giggled to first read about, as we say ‘honking’ around here, and my first thought was of a street harasser creepy person standing on a corner talking Beaker-ese to passerby) are complimentary and that if you are dressed like that, you must want that sort of reaction?

I’m reminded of Brave New World, in which the characters of every social class are convinced (and systemically remind others) of how their position is the best. Optimism and content is lovely, but not when it stems from ignorant self-degradation.

I had my ass grabbed by a colleague at a work-related conference with few of my co-workers and several levels of upper management standing about 3 feet away. The first time he did it I told him to knock it off, and he grinned and did it again. The first thing that came to my mind was – if I hit him, I’m gonna get fired. I froze. I couldn’t hit him, and I couldn’t think of anything to say.

So yeah. We freeze.

After discussing this with one of the upper level managers standing by, it was made clear by her that I probably _wouldn’t_ have been fired. Oh hindsight…

Yeah, total stranger. I also like my dress, I actually spent a lot of time looking for just the right one — and no, they don’t make them like this anymore. But FRANKLY, I don’t give a fuck. Right now, I want to go to my appointment or to this date or to the grocery store or the bus stop and now that I’ve left the house, MY OUTFIT DOESN’T MATTER TO ME, I’m CERTAINLY not thinking about the acceptability/fuckability rating of MY BODY, and I DON’T WANT YOU LOOKING AT ME, JUDGING ME, SIZING ME UP, AND DECIDING I PASS MUSTER, thank you very much.
Because I didn’t leave the house today just so I could walk past YOU and meet YOUR approval.

And yeah, I did put some effort into dressing up, I always do. But it’s because I know that when I don’t, the harassment is invariably worse. That’s when the homophobes and enforcers of the beauty/fuckability mandate really come out in force, and they get in my face. Sometimes with blunt weaponry and/or threats. So I’d rather have the catcalling, yes. But I’m still not doing this for you, Mr. Stranger. Get out of my goddamned face.

Like Sady, I live in New York City, and vouch that people here often feel like they can say whatever they want to other people. Some, mostly older, gentlemen often compliment me in the way Shorty described, and offense is taken on a case-by-case basis.
Sometimes it just seems genuinely nice, the equivalent of me telling another lady that I like her funky shoes or admire her obviously cherished dress.
Sometimes it’s nice, but also patronizing, like the man in question thinks I am a doll or a child or this is 1963 and we’ve stepped into Mad Men.
And then a lot of the times it’s leering and gross in ways we all understand so well, but just phrased differently.

Maybe I’m only understanding of the first and second types because in light of the other type, they seem almost kind. Maybe I distinguish at all because my fellow women and I are constantly under bombardment from the typical skeevers, perverts, subway creeps, construction workers, addicts, and the type of Jersey assholes who spit on me, bark at me like I’m a dog, and yell numerical ratings at every passing woman.

Not to mention the systematic oppression, silencing, and hatred we all meet even from some men who are our fathers, brothers, partners, friends, and casual lovers. Or who are cops, coworkers, doctors, postmen, bus drivers, fellow activists, etc. Everybody here is going to know what I mean, so I won’t even bother to continue.